A meeting
by Kotay
Summary: An imaginary meeting: Rukia and HollowIchigo. My first fanfiction.


An imaginary meeting: Rukia and Hollow/Ichigo. My first fanfiction.

I'm sorry for my bad english ... I know that verbs isn't my best. Sorry once more...  
(Standard disclaimer applied)

The air was heavy, oppressive. The familiar and silent streets of Karakura were sinking in a icy atmosphere. But not for the aftereffects of Shirayuki presence. Not even for the wind that in this part of the year become more and more cooler...

Rukia stand motionless, a hand secure on her zampakuto's hilt. He was there. Right in front of her eyes.

Ichigo's face seem normal in the half shadows, but Rukia know very well that were an illusion. The eternal frown was always present, but now framed an ashen face with black eyes like an abyss.  
His expression held a rage, a cold killer will that don't has nothing to do with the ever frowned face of the young Shinigami... or substitute Shinigami...

Rukia seen Kaien's face for a moment, deformed and monstrous in its metamorphosis . In that moment, madness took a more definite form, more concrete. The Hollow ruling his heart had cripple his features and his voice, making impossible recognize him.  
Why Ichigo's transformation was so loaded? So elusive?

But Ichigo looks untouched. But looked only...

Only Byakuya-aniki had find himself already face to face with this being . After Ichigo's departure from Soul Society, the battle between the Six Division Captain and the Shinigami boy become a popular gossip through all Gotei 13. The defeat of one of the Kuchiki were already a legend!

Luckily, Byakuya told her everything before she know from anyone of them.  
She was called in the dojo of the large mansion of the family clan. Renji was already there, visible worried. Probably her brother called him for a psychological support, but looking at Renji's face make Rukia only more nervous.

In spite of the calmest choice of words, the description of the hollow mask on Ichigo's face send Rukia in a nightmare already lived. From that nightmare Rukia don't know if she had the strength to wake up for a second time.

Seem destiny indeed had a macabre sense of humour.

With a sigh she straighten up, getting ready for his assault. She was in front of a hollow. Ichigo will approve her behaviour.

Ichigo himself was lean against Zangetzu, eyes on the ground. Motionless. In silence.  
But a moment later, he was laughing. A sinister laughter that become more and more coarse, insolent.  
Then when he raised his look, hard eyes, the laughter stops like the way it begin.

"You have to look at your face" ... Ichigo.

"My face is the same as ever, you have to know very well..." Rukia haven't any intention of let him make joke of her.

"Oooh, yes... I know very well your face..."

His voice was like a hiss. Rukia began to feeling angriest like she's never been. Ichigo don't had this cruelty in his speech! Ichigo don't had this merciless through his eyes! This monster that don't deserve anything beside burning in hell?

"You are unusual silent. With Ichigo you're not this timid..." His smile was disgusting. His face more and more a parody of what its must be. He was a clown. Sad and terrible.

"I don't have nothing to say to a monster like you!"

Ichigo rised the zanpakuto. Zangetzu whirled a couple of time in the air. The right hand of Rukia ready on the hilt of Shirayuki, trembled just one moment. The last thing that she wanted its a fight.

The tip of Zangetzu stiked itself in the asphalt, meanwhile Ichigo walked very slowly toward her. He stopped one meter from her with arrogantly, atrocious eyes and hands on his sides.   
The head tilted on one side, scrutinizing her.

Rukia rested still with a growing anxious feeling and an unpleasant sensation.

"Ah, Yes? You don't have anything to say to one like me?" a bitter smile "Strange, I was thinking that you'll take the most of the opportunity..."

Rukia doesn't understand where his point is...

"I was thinking that you probably have many questions." He smiles again "Or that you will say something futile...like that you'll free Ichigo from me" a pause "tzk...how disappointing"

"I don't have to say that. Ichigo himself will destroy you, disgusting monster!" Rukia was saying convincing herself, but in truth she doesn't had the slightest idea of what to do to help him... She doesn't know how to wake ichigo from his alter-ego. The death of Kaien shows that the state when a shinigami and a hollow fused is inseparable. A point of no return.

The vision that until this moment she's manage to keep away, is clear right in front of her eyes: Ichigo a corpse in the blood like Kaien.

The monster seems to notice her uncertainty. His serious face almost compassionable …

"You know already, Rukia?" Her name uttered by this monster is an insult. "I and Ichigo now are one thing" His gaze become wild, furious " And soon I'll rule him! I'll erase him! Of him will remain only his body" says slowly putting a hand on his chest.

"I'll don't let you!" her imposed indifferent facade cracking faster "You are only a monster and the aberration like you haven't any places where exist!" She was screaming now, careless of the consequences.

Ichigo's reaction was fulminious and without realize it, Rukia found herself against the wall behind her shoulders. Ichigo take her hands, caging her between him and the wall. He leans over her. His lips touching his hair.

"I have the power to kill you" his breath was hot "I want to kill you" that was more like a snarl.

His hands grasp her shoulders painfully! But a moment later his hold become a caress that slowly was going down on her arms.  
Ichigo lower his head, touching her shoulder. The silence was unbearable.

"But I can't" he whispered. For a moment Rukia think that Ichigo is becoming himself again.

"I'll never can do it..."

A shiver. No, Ichigo yet isn't himself. His tone is still too sinister, too allusive. The malice that betray his voice haven't nothing to do with the real Ichigo.  
His eyes were gleaming in a strange way, like a child on the point of telling the most unknown secret. Suddenly the monster put his lips near her ears.

"Because we love you..."

Wh..at? Rukia looked at him with wide-open eyes.

"...we desire you..."

The secret that this being told her is a inconceivable thought that she deny quicker as possible.

"This is the reason why I can't kill you" another caress "but only until I'll completely destroy his heart, because that is part of me too"

Ichigo rise his head and look Rukia directly in the eyes. She have a lost expression.  
Ichigo make a smile "But this is a secret!" he really was pretending to act like a child "Don't tell anyone!" and putting a finger upon her lips "...shhh"

The monster turn on himself and walk away heading toward Zangeztu. "I make you a favour, you know?" added "Ichigo haven't any intention of telling you that..." He put back Zangetzu on the shoulders "See you!" Than he disappear in the night.

Rukia felt exausted. She slide to the ground and grab with all her strength Shirayuki's hilt, hoping that the katana may give her some energy. But there wasn't solace that can help her.

It's like time has stopped for Rukia. Everything has halting midair, like the movies she's learning to watch when she's living in this world. And for a moment she's believe to sinking in a twisted fiction, where everything turned to caos before the inevitable happy ending.  
But she ever wasn't that naive to believe story like that may exist. After all she has grow as an orphan in the most miserable place of Soul Society. She's living up until now in a house where no one really wants her. She has desired for years the care of a brother and losed at the same time the complicity with her best friend.  
She has killed the only person that make her feel welcome, who show her affection ... leaving in her with an immature love.

In a moment she felt smashed to the ground. Her thoughs was frantic and skipped from Ichigo to Kaien, from hope to despair. From love to hate. How? How this situation can have a happy ending? When the last time the conclusion was that tragic? To her eyes there's no difference between the past situation and what Ichigo was living now.

Rukia lift herself slowly from the concrete. She can't help thinking about her role in that all. The abrupt change in Ichigo's life was already an oppressive weight, but just thinking that her rescue sent him beyond his limits is too much!

Putting guilty on herself were an old habit. Ichigo will be angry if he know she think that all was her fault.  
Rukia felt a familiar sense of inadequacy . A feeling that follow her since the day she enter in the Kuchiki family. Rukia shake her head. This way of thinking don't leading anywhere.

But thinking of what the hollow has said to her was disturbing, but not much more that his way of touching her. For a moment she want to believe that Ichigo must love her. Friendship, yes, but in her life love was almost totally absent (parental love included).

Rukia suddenly felt herself blushing.

The next moment she hate herself for her fantasies. Once more she was asking why a Shinigami has this type of feelings. Feelings unrequired. Feelings that will rest unsatisfied. Feeling that were nothing but a burden. "So stupid. So selfish"  
Ichigo was in danger and she can't help but thinking at the implication of what the hollow said. In this moment the only thing that was important was to find a way to save Ichigo from himself.

Love? It's impossible. She can believe it.  
Love can't live in a hollow heart. And, in her case, in a Shinigami heart.

Rukia straighten up and began to walk toward the Kurosaki household.


End file.
